MILDEW AND BRAND. 
179 
or irregular spots which indicate the unwelcome presence of 
Puccinia graminis, known to him, and to generations of farmers 
before him, as “ mildew.-” Try to convince a Norfolk farmer 
that anything else is “ mildew,” and he will consider you insane 
for your pains. Speak of mildew in your own domestic ( circle, 
and inquire of wives, or daughters, or servants, what it means, 
and without hesitation another, and even more minute species 
of fungus, which attacks damp linen, will be indicated as the 
true mildew, to the exclusion of all others; and with equal 
claims to antiquity. Go to Farnham, or any other hop- 
growing district, and repeat there your question, — What is 
mildew ? — and there is every probability that you will be told 
that it is a kind of mould which attacks the hop plant, but 
which differs as much from both the mildew of the farmer and 
the laundry-maid as they differ from each other. The vine- 
grower has his mildew, the gardener his mildewed onions, the 
stationer his mildewed paper from damp cellars, the plasterer 
his mildewed walls, and in almost every calling, or sphere in 
life, wherever a minute fungus commits its ravages upon stock, 
crop, or chattels, to that individual owner it becomes a bug- 
bear under the name of mildew.” Reluctantly this vague 
term has been employed as a portion of the sub-title to this 
paper, but it must be limited in its application to the “ mildew 
of corn,” known to botanists as Puccinia graminis , and not 
to include the numerous other microscopic Fungi to which the 
name of mildew is often applied. 
The origin of this term and its original meaning appear to 
be alike obscure. A singular proof of the ignorance which 
prevails in regard to all the fungal diseases of corn, may be 
found in the fact that at least one of our best etymological 
dictionaries states that the mildew in corn is the same as the 
ergot of the French. Had the writer ever been a farmer, he 
would have known the difference ; had he ever seen the two, 
he could scarcely have made such a mistake. It is barely 
possible for him ever to have heard the ergot of grain called 
by the name of mildew. 
How long this disease has been known, is another unsolved 
problem. About the middle of the last century a tract was 
published on this subject in Italy, but this was probably not 
even the first intimation of its fungoid character. Before such 
conclusion had been arrived at, men may have struggled in 
the dark, through many generations, to account for a pheno- 
menon with which they were doubtless familiar in its effects. 
In 1805, Sir Joseph Banks published his “ Short Account,” 
illustrated by engravings from the inimitable drawings of 
Bauer, whereby many in this country learnt, for the first time, 
the true nature of mildew. 
